Denmark

Constitutional Provisions

The 1953 Constitutional Act of Denmark addresses a number of human rights in its Part VIII, but not the rights to life or to be free from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Section 79 provides that:

Citizens shall, without previous permission, be at liberty to assemble unarmed. The police shall be entitled to be present at public meetings. The police shall be entitled to be present at public meetings. Open-air meetings may be prohibited when it is feared that they may constitute a danger to the public peace.

The Constitutional Act does not specifically regulate the use of force by the police or other law enforcement agencies. 

Treaty Adherence

Global Treaties

Regional Treaties

National Legislation

Police Use of Force

Chapter 4 of the 2004 Danish Police Activities Act (as amended) regulates the use of force by the police in Denmark. Section 16 of the Act provides:

(1) The police may use force only if necessary and justified and only by such means and to such extent as are reasonable relative to the interest which the police seek to protect. Any assessment of the justifiability of such force must also take into account whether the use of force involves any risk of bodily harm to third parties.

(2) Force must be used as considerately as possible under the circumstances and so as to minimise any bodily harm.

Other sections detail under what specific circumstances the police are permitted to use specific weapons: firearms, batons, dogs and chemical irritants. With respect to firearms, Section 17 reads as follows:

(1) Firearms may only be used: 
(i)    to avert an ongoing or imminent dangerous assault on a person; 
(ii)    to avert other imminent danger to the lives of persons or of such persons incurring grievous bodily harm; 
(iii)    to avert an ongoing or imminent dangerous attack on important institutions, companies or facilities; 
(iv)    to secure the apprehension of persons who have or are suspected on reasonable grounds of having commenced or committed a dangerous assault on another person unless the risk that such persons will commit another such assault is deemed not to exist; 
(v)    to secure the apprehension of persons who have or are suspected of having commenced or committed a dangerous attack on important institutions, companies or facilities; or
(vi)    to secure the apprehension of persons who have or are suspected of having committed serious crimes against the State’s independence and security, against its Constitution or supreme authorities of the State.

(2) Before the police fire shots involving a risk of harm to a person, the person must be informed in so far as possible, first by shouted warnings and then by warning shots, that the police intend to fire if police orders are not observed. It must also be ensured, in so far as possible, that the person is able to observe the order.

(3) In case of an obvious risk of hitting third parties, shots may only be fired as a last resort. ...

(5) If police shooting has caused harm to a person, the person must immediately be examined by a doctor.

These provisions are more permissive than international law allows. Firearms may only be used where necessary to confront an imminent threat of death or serious injury or a grave and proximate threat to life.

Police Oversight

Denmark has an independent police oversight mechanism. Section 118 of the 2018 Danish Administration of Justice Act established the Danish Independent Police Complaints Authority (DIPCA) as an independent authority to deal with complaints about the police and investigate criminal cases against police personnel. Section 1020a(2) of the Act provides that the Independent Police Complaints Authority shall also initiate investigations when a person has died or has been seriously injured as a result of police interference or while in custody. 

In its 2023 Concluding Observations on Denmark, however, the Committee against Torture was "concerned by the low number of criminal charges that result from allegations of police misconduct lodged with the Independent Police Complaints Authority and regrets, in this regard, that the Authority lacks an explicit legal basis to investigate cases of torture and ill-treatment".  

Caselaw

Global

Views and Concluding Observations of United Nations Treaty Bodies

In its 2023 Concluding Observations on Denmark, the Committee against Torture stated that

the State party should ensure that all investigations into allegations of torture and ill-treatment first include inquiries as to whether or not an act of torture or ill-treatment has occurred rather than solely focusing on whether the evidence available is of sufficient quality to lodge criminal charges against the accused. In doing so, the State party should be mindful of the fact that injuries sustained by persons deprived of their liberty place an additional onus on the State party to demonstrate that it has acted sufficiently and has undertaken all due diligence to ensure the physical and psychological integrity of the detainee. 

In its 2016 Concluding Observations on Denmark, the Human Rights Committee did not directly address police use of force.

Regional

Kalkan v. Denmark

There was an important case concerning police use of force in Denmark adjudged by the European Court of Human Rights in May 2025. The case concerned the death of the applicant’s son in prison after being restrained in a prone position leg-lock for about thirteen minutes, following which he suffered a heart attack. The failure of the national authorities to transmit to the prison authorities updated information on the additional risks associated with the prone position or to review and update their instructions and training until after the incident as well as the failure to issue clear and adequate instructions for prison guards and to train them on the use of the prone position when restraining prisoners was a violation of the duty to protect life. As a result of the failures, the relevant prison officers lacked the high level of competence required when dealing with a risk-to-life situation.

El-Asmar v. Denmark

In this 2023 judgment, the European Court of Human Rights found that investigations into acts of torture and ill-treatment in detention might, in some cases, be overly narrow in scope, focusing on the criminal culpability of perpetrators rather than on the  occurrence of an act of torture or ill-treatment. The case concerned the use of pepper spray against an aggressive prisoner in an observation cell without prior warning. The failure by the authorities to demonstrate that the deployment of pepper spray was made strictly necessary by the applicant’s conduct amounted to inhuman or degrading treatment. 

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